The Cats Eye Nebula from Hubble
29.01.2017

To some, it may look like a cat's eye. The alluring Cat's Eye nebula, however, lies three thousand light-years from Earth across interstellar space. A classic planetary nebula, the Cat's Eye (NGC 6543) represents a final, brief yet glorious phase in the life of a sun-like star.

M80: A Dense Globular Cluster
7.07.1999

If our Sun were part of M80, the night sky would glow like a jewel box of bright stars. M80, also known as NGC 6093, is one of about 250 globular clusters that survive in our Galaxy.

Solar System Rising Over Fire Island
3.05.2005

If you wait long enough, the entire Solar System will rise before you. To see such a sight, however, you will need to look in the direction of the ecliptic. All of the planets and their moons orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane, the ecliptic plane.

Crescent Saturn
6.07.2019

Saturn never shows a crescent phase -- from Earth. But when viewed from beyond, the majestic giant planet can show an unfamiliar diminutive sliver. This image of crescent Saturn in natural color was taken by the robotic Cassini spacecraft in 2007.

Infrared Helix
1.09.1997

Five hundred light years from Earth, in the constellation Aquarius, a sun-like star is dying. Its last few thousand years have produced the Helix, a well studied and nearby example of a Planetary Nebula - typical of this final phase of stellar evolution.

Solstice Moonrise, Cape Sounion
20.06.2008

Today's solstice marks the northernmost point of the Sun's annual motion through planet Earth's sky and the astronomical beginning of the northern hemisphere's summer. But only two days ago, the Full Moon nearest the solstice rose close to the ecliptic plane opposite the Sun, near its southernmost point for the year.

NGC 2440: Pearl of a New White Dwarf
16.05.2015

Like a pearl, a white dwarf star shines best after being freed from its shell. In this analogy, however, the Sun would be a mollusk and its discarded hull would shine prettiest of all!

Bright from the Heart Nebula
26.10.2015

What's that inside the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: hydrogen.

AR2835: Islands in the Photosphere
1.07.2021

Awash in a sea of incandescent plasma and anchored in strong magnetic fields, sunspots are planet-sized dark islands in the solar photosphere, the bright surface of the Sun. Found in solar active regions, sunspots...

Sudbury Indicates Nonstandard Particle Model
10.07.2001

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) has been detecting so few neutrinos from the Sun that the Standard Model of fundamental particles in the universe may have to be revised. Pictured above is the SNO as it was being built.